5 Nuns Who Could Kick Your Ass

Hollywood loves to portray nuns as stern, sexless, boxy women who spend most of their days slapping students in the hand with rulers. But that's about as much as they're allowed to misbehave.

With a few exceptions.

But history tells us that real nuns are quite a bit more awesome than that, and even the most pious sisters are not immune from the all-too-human desires for blood, petty vengeance and transgender exploration. Just check out the stories of...

#5. Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte and Jackie Hudson

So what does it take for a group of nuns to wind up on a Terrorist Watch List? Ask Sisters Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte and Jackie Hudson. They're peace activists who both wound up on the Maryland State Police's list of terrorists and were sentenced to a total of nine years in federal prison to boot.

It all happened after the nuns wanted to protest the war in Afghanistan but decided that standing on the roadside holding signs just wouldn't cut it. Instead, they broke into a Colorado military base that, oh by the way, housed nuclear missiles.

"What? We're pretty sure Jesus would've done it."

They made it to the silos themselves, pounded on them with a hammer (note: if you happen to encounter nuclear missiles in the future, DO NOT HIT THEM WITH HAMMERS) and painted crosses on the concrete using baby bottles filled with blood. Their own.

By the way, that was a Minuteman III missile in that silo, which is supposed to be 20 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

So how did these three sisters infiltrate the top-secret compound? That's the most frightening part of the protest: The atomic harbinger of doom was protected by a fence locked with a single chain. All the sisters had to do was use some bolt cutters. It was like breaking into a dog park.

Given their apparent masochistic tendencies, it's not surprising that the sisters chose to suffer in prison over appealing their case. They even requested to go to prison immediately instead of waiting for the schedule date. They're back out now, so if they shanked anybody while they were on the inside, they apparently weren't caught. We still wouldn't fuck with them, though.

#4. The Nuns of Rutino, Italy

In 2008, a man named Aniello Esposito was in the middle of a dispute about his lease on convent-owned property. He was accused of illegally using the space to run a restaurant. Then, one night, Esposito heard that two of the nuns and a priest were trashing the place.

That's really not the kind of news you want to hear (though honestly it seems like the kind of thing you'd like to see at least once) so he ran over in hopes of having a nice, peaceful chat.

They promptly called the police after they stood around and watched for at least 15 minutes and probably taped a good portion of it. Esposito was brought to the hospital with neck and abdominal contusions along with the most awesomely humiliating story of his life.

In a cruel move by the media, his was the only name released to the public.

#3. Odette de Pougy

It doesn't get any more wholesome than this: Odette de Pougy was an abbess; the Mother Superior of an abbey of nuns.

In1265, the Pope Urban IV decided to build a church on the site where his father's shoe shop used to be. De Pougy, unaware or not caring that the Pope was her boss, informed him that the property belonged to the abbey and that he could not build there.

Unarmed with the knowledge we have on nuns today, he went ahead with it anyway because he was the freaking Pope. Back then, if you opposed the Pope that was like jabbing God with a sharp stick.

Is it cool with everyone if we just throw in a picture of a hot nun once in a while?

De Pougy didn't give a shit. In true nun fashion (in the context of this article, anyway) she brought armed thugs to the construction site to drive away the Pope's crew. Urban waited two years and tried again, only to witness the return of her personal army. The Pope struck back by excommunicating her entire abbey for 14 years.

He eventually got his church built... but he waited until de Pougy had died to do it.